The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Will you rethink Facebook?
Amid security fears, many Georgia users view site as vital in their lives. But some are scaling back as they rein in time spent on social media.
When Jennifer Keenan Giliberto joined Facebook in 2008, she was thrilled to connect with old classmates from high school and college.
She was 33, living in Alpharetta and often wondered where her high school classmates in Connecticut had landed, as well as college friends from Pennsylvania and Indiana. It was virtually impossible to keep track of job changes, relocations, marriages and name changes.
Suddenly, thanks to Facebook, she was reconnecting almost overnight with childhood friends, old neighbors, former lacrosse teammates, digitally catching up and filling in the gaps of their lives.
“It was a great time in our lives to reconnect and share,” Keenan Giliberto said.
But in recent years, the now 43-year-old mom has cooled on Facebook, a platform which now has 2 billion active users around the globe. Facebook has also become saturated with more content, including political rants, fake news, argumentative posts, and yes ads. The negativity made her want to turn away from the social media giant.
Then came recent revelations that Facebook let a data mining firm collect user data that was used to try and influence the 2016 presidential election.
This past week, as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress, millions of users found out on their Facebook pages
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Meanwhile, the privacy scandal has opened the door to users downloading files to see what Facebook knows, and assumes about them — and the harvesting of personal details goes far beyond what many could imagine — photos of their family and friends, locations they’ve visited, posts that may reveal their political ide- ology, search queries they’ve typed into Facebook, and much, much more.
When Brian X. Chen, lead consumer technology writer for The New York Times, downloaded a copy of his Facebook data recently, he didn’t expect to see much. He said his profile is sparse, he rarely posts anything on the site, and seldom clicks on ads. In a piece he wrote for the Times, Chen said open- ing his file was like opening Pandora’s box. “With a few clicks, I learned that about 500 advertisers — many that I had never heard of, like Bad Dad, a motorcycle parts store, and Space Jesus, an electronica band — had my contact infor- mation, which could include my email address, phone number and full name,” Chen wrote. “Facebook also had my entire phone book, including the number to ring my apartment buzzer. The social network had even kept a permanent record of the roughly 100 people I had deleted from my friends list over the last 14 years, includ- ing my exes.” Experts say the debacle highlights another big prob- lem that can be better controlled: Users download apps and allow companies to collect information about them without a second thought. They post personal informa- tion, including announcing to Facebook (and the world) they are going on vacation. By listing dates of absence, (addresses are often listed on profiles), users are basically informing others that their home will be unattended and, therefore, an easy target for a break-in. Most don’t even fully understand how Facebook works. “First question: How much do you pay for Facebook? Zero. They maketheir money by data sharing. They gather information like what you eat for breakfast. We have this mistaken notion about privacy,” Chellappa said. “We also know the average consumer is not reading the privacy policy and doesn’t understand what this infor- mation sharing can do.” And while you may post something and move on, Facebook holds onto every piece of information. “Why should a friend two years from now know I was upset with them two years earlier? Even the friend will forget about it by then,” Chel- lappa said. “But not Face- book.” Experts say there are some simple steps users can take to help limit the amount of data Facebook collects. To start, change privacy settings from public to private. Denish Shah, associate professor of marketing at the Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, also suggests avoiding third party apps, such as the glamour app that turns any photo into a glam shot. It may seem like a silly game, but it’s also a ploy to develop a psychological profile for advertisers. Experts say when users visit another website with their Facebook page open — maybe to peruse at shoes or stainless refrigerators — Facebook can track that data. For David Ryan Polgar, co-host of Funny as Tech (a podcast and live panel that tackles thorny issues in tech), one of the biggest takeaways from Zuckerberg’s testimony is the notion that Facebook and other social media are “free.” Facebook generated about $40 billion in revenue last year, with about 98 percent coming from advertising. “Every piece of info about who we are, our likes, activities, and whereabouts are extremely valuable insights that advertisers are hungry for,” Polgar said. Shah said even his tech savvy students are surprised, even aghast, when he tells them how much information Facebook has on them. Shah said the onus of responsibility to simplify privacy settings and better protect consumers falls on Facebook, and the government can be a watchdog to oversee it. He said Facebook needs to be more transparent about how the information collected is being used. Keenan Giliberto, a professional photographer, has scaled back her engagement on Facebook less because of privacy concerns and more about wanting to rein in her time plugged into social media. She has been more mindful of her time on Facebook especially since her oldest child, Tucker, is a teenager and also engaged in social media. And even though Tucker and other young people are less likely to join Facebook in favor of Snapchat or Instagram (owned by Facebook), they
too face privacy issues with information shared on those platforms.
“It’s difficult to sit down with your teenager and talk about balance and you shouldn’t care how many people are following you on Snapchat when you are spending hours scrolling on your own Facebook page,” Keenan Giliberto said.
In January, she deleted the Facebook app from her iPhone. She only checks Facebook on her desktop computer at home and once a day.
Amy Moore, a 43-year-old scientist who lives in Decatur, was not overly surprised or disturbed by revelations about Facebook.
“I think it’s one of those innovations that has changed the world, for better and for worse,” Moore, who works at Emory University, responded by email.
“Do I anticipate delet- ing my Facebook account? No,” she wrote. “Perhaps I should be horrified that my data could have been compromised, but I don’t personally believe that I have been ‘manipulated’ negatively. I use it as a platform to stay connected with friends and family who are spread around the country and world — I’m not sure what would fill that void if Facebook went away. Another similar platform would come along, and the issues and challenges would likely be the same.”
Moore, a prolific poster, uses Facebook to post family photos, share news articles, and to make funny, witty commentary about her life. As a scientist with expertise in virology and cancer research, she shares information about vaccines and other research.
“One positive outcome of that is people view me as trustworthy and they ask my questions about vaccines, cancer treatment or other things because they know I will give them the answers or find out,” she said.
At the same time, it’s not all good. The ugly political discourse, the way social media can be used to bully.
“Don’t get me wrong — at times, I wonder if the world would be better off had Facebook and other social media platforms not developed,” Moore said. “The beast has been unleashed. Can it be tamed? I don’t know.”